


Rasa And The Cat: Kyogen

by greenkangaroo



Series: Rasa And The Cat [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, FIx It, Family, Gen, M/M, Time Travel AU, in this house we say fuck time paradoxes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-03-15 01:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo
Summary: Kyogen: independent, humorous plays between Noh performances; akiyogen, interludes.Tales of the man who would call himself Kazuo and the people whose lives he altered, in pieces that never fit into the original story.





	1. Curiosity and The Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Rasa And The Cat covers a lot of ground in one fic, and while I wouldn't change a thing about it I often think of events that occured in the time between Kankuro waking and his 'death'. This is my attempt to collect those shorts, some of which appear on tumblr. Please note that they are not in any kind of chronological order.

“You know.”

Something about the way Baki says it makes Yashamaru close his book. 

“I’ve never seen him without his paint, either.” 

Yashamaru looks at Baki down the bridge of his nose. Baki shrugs. “It’s weird, isn’t it?” He asks. “That he wears it all the time. There’s no rules about it.” 

“A lot of puppeteers are in performance face all the time,” Yashamaru disagrees.

“Yes, when they’re on duty or acting in an official capacity for the Playhouse,” Baki agrees, “but on the weekends? During leave? In the middle of the night getting a glass of cactus water?” 

Okay, yes, Yashamaru has to agree that had been a little strange. Still. 

“It’s what Cat prefers,” Yashamaru says in the same tone of voice he uses with Gaara to indicate that a discussion has finished. 

Baki is not Gaara. 

“You must be curious," he points out. 

Yashamaru gives Baki another look.

“They’re genin,” Baki tells his coworker. “Talented, but hardly on Cat’s level. We are jounin.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Yashamaru says but Baki can see him wavering. The team's shenanigans regarding Cat's facepaint might be teaching them essential skills but it's also a distraction. It would be good to put an end to the whole affair. Time to play the ace. 

“Want to make a bet on it?” Baki offers. 

Yashamaru’s gaze goes flinty. 

–

Okay. 

This could be worse. 

Not by _much,_ but it could be. 

“If you can’t trust your coworkers to respect your privacy,” Cat laments, patting his hands on his perfect Prince Shigamura, “who can you trust? I should tell the kids.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Baki says. His growling commander voice is not as effective on Cat as it is on Kankuro. The puppeteer flaps his hand, which causes the chakra strings wrapped around the two men to twist a little more, sending them in slow revolutions buffeted by the desert wind. At least he has them hanging on one of the more concealed skywalks. It's rare anyone ventures this way unless there's an emergency and they're headed to defend the walls, which is why Baki picked it as an ambush spot. Little cover, plenty of sun. The whole area is practically puppeteer-proof. 

Not puppeteer-proof enough, it seems. 

“Why not? They need to know how great soldiers fail in battle so they don’t repeat their mistakes.” Cat says. 

“You used a loop tripwire!” Baki barks. “It’s an amateur trick!” 

“But it worked, didn’t it?” Cat taunts. Baki makes a noise like an angry sand rat. Yashamaru wisely keeps his mouth shut. He was unaware that chakra strings could thread through his glass weapons to change their direction- a costly mistake but a weakness he's pleased to know about. 

On the bright side, neither Yashamaru nor Baki have lost money to one another. 

On the not so bright side all the blood in Yashamaru’s body is in his head and he’s starting to see spots. 

Stupid Baki. This is all his fault. 

–

Cat doesn’t tell the kids.

He does teach them the finer points of loop tripwires the next morning.


	2. Understudy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's always an understudy for the main character.

Kankuro sits in his bedroom before a broad round mirror with a dark wood frame, inlaid with silver branches and golden cranes. It’s a precious item that sticks out like a sore thumb in the survivalist aesthetic of the desert. He remembers when his teacher stole it. Baki and Yashamaru had thrown a fit when Cat showed up at the rendezvous site with the scrolls they were seeking and a pilfered mirror. 

Cat had huffed at them grinned at Kankuro, sealed it into his sleeve. 

"It's pretty," he'd said with an air of finality and no one had bothered to contradict him because it's true the mirror is very pretty and it should be, it used to belong to the Damiyo of the Land of Flowers. 

The mirror is Kankuro’s now, as is everything that once belonged to Cat. 

There isn’t much. Cat had no living family and no patron. His will was brief, to read and to execute. 

Kankuro leans forward and begins. 

_“Now, kid, you don’t have to go with the white base all the time, you’re pale enough, Sands even knows how- but don’t you ever forget it if you’re going solo, got it? It’s a vital part of that performance.”_

He applies the white base coat as he was taught, overlapping strokes with a broad brush wetted ever so slightly with precious cactus water. It lets the paint matte, gives the illusion of a perfect mask. 

_“You don’t need half the amount of paint on your brush you think you do, and you don’t want to waste it, especially not the poisoned stuff. Tap lightly when it’s a powder, press firm when it’s oil based.”_

Kankuro’s hand hesitates just a second over the well used pot of vermillion red, looking so innocent between its cousins coral and salmon. He bites his lip before moving on to the line of purples. He knows he should throw the red away, bad luck to use a dead puppeteer's favored paint. 

Still it remains between coral and salmon. 

_“Paint is like the desert, Kankuro. Everyone thinks it’s one color but that’s bullshit. The desert is all colors, and so are we.”_

Kankuro begins with the darkest lines first, lining out the swoops on his cheeks and forehead, the half moon on his chin. 

_“Never use a big brush for outlines. You'll make a huge damn mess and shading will be a nightmare. Big brush is for base coat only, got it?”_

“Got it,” Kankuro murmurs and switches shades and brushes. 

He fills in the swoops first with a medium purple, something close to lavender. Another switch and he fills in the middle. 

now it’s time to blend. 

_“Plenty of puppeteers skip the blend and they look like the buffoons they are. Don’t you ever let me catch you skipping the blending, Crow, or I’ll beat you to Konoha and back.”_

As Kankuro blends with his fingertips the three shades of purple begin to meld and mix until there is a gradient in every swoop, a twilight touch to the half moon. 

Kankuro puts aside his face brushes, picks up his lip brush. 

_“You think this looks stupid, don’t you? Well, it might, but it’s necessary. If your performance requires words, it’s the most important step.”_

He does his lips a little longer, a little bigger. He doesn’t need to go as hard as other puppeteers- he has a wide mouth, something he shares with his dead father. 

Shares with his dead teacher. 

He does his eyebrows last with a fresh brush, a few quick strokes of black that lead up to the swoops on his forehead. 

Kankuro dusts the finely milled setting powder out onto a flat, polished obsidian disk, loads his fluffiest brush with it. 

He applies evenly and swiftly. It’s sheer, but too much and it will dampen his Face; too little, and he might flake. 

When he is done Kankuro sits back and looks at himself in Cat’s mirror. 

He is still looking when there is a knock on the door. 

“Come in,” he says, and Yashamaru enters. 

“Kankuro, Lord Kazekage was-” 

Yashamaru stops talking and Kankuro knows why. He can see his uncle’s face reflected in Cat’s mirror, and knows that Yashamaru sees what he sees. 

“Oh, Kankuro.” Yashamaru says softly, closing the door and coming forward. “You look..” 

‘Just like him’ is on the tip of his tongue, at the front of Kankuro’s mind. They both feel it, that secret that Gaara kept locked behind his tongue even as Cat literally dissolved in front of them, eyes closing and body dissipating into thin air as though he’d been nothing more than a sand clone. 

Cat- Kazuo- who had no family, no patron, no past. 

Cat, who had come into their lives with all the force of a standing ovation and left as silent as a dropping stage curtain. 

Kankuro knows he can never ask and Yashamaru knows too, but it is here in the mirror Cat left to his student, staring at them. 

Yashamaru puts his hand on Kankuro’s shoulder. 

Kankuro puts the tops on his pots, puts his brushes in their holders. Yashamaru goes to the bed in the corner where the over-robe is. It’s laden with embroidered silk in red and gold and green, telling the story of Red Sands from the beginning to now. It has taken four of the most talented seamstresses in Suna to alter it to fit.

Chiyo is two feet shorter than Kankuro, and wider besides. 

Yashamaru holds it up. Kankuro offers his arms and his uncle helps him into it. Yashamaru steps back. 

His eyes aren’t dry. 

“They would be so, so proud of you.” He whispers. 

“I know.” Kankuro says. It comes harsh and Yashamaru embraces him. Kankuro hugs back, swallowing the tightness in his throat. 

Kankuro leaves his room and and his paint and the mirror behind. He will be declared Troupe Master of Red Sands, uniting Playhouse and Kazekage for the first time in generations. He will become instrumental in the changing world of ninja. He will be feared, he will be hated, he will be loved. 

He will be the kind of man who gets a second chance and doesn’t waste it. 

He is Kankuro, who is Crow, who was Kazuo who was Cat; and he will never ask his brother for the truth, because in his heart he knows it. 

So does Yashamaru, and Temari, and even Baki; so does the desert. 

Harsh and unforgiving, beautiful as death.


	3. Glorious Desert Blossom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the midst of the chaos that is the Konoha Crush, a romance begins.

Yashamaru sees gold flickering in the air before Baki and he leans forward over the railing. 

It could be the move of a nervous teacher watching his student compete in a difficult fight. It looks that way and it should. Yashamaru is one of the finest Black Sands to ever come out of Suna. 

Then up above a snake splits from his skin and all hell breaks loose. 

Yashamaru is proud of Gaara; when the Oto nin make for Sasuke, he drives his Sand into the ground and creates a garden of deadly spikes. It takes no time at all for Temari and Kankuro to be at his side. Up in the stands other young ninja- mostly from Leaf- are stirring, freeing themselves one by one from the genjutsu placed on the audience. 

_Leaf has many strong young ones,_ Yashamaru thinks before driving a thin glass needle through the eye of the Oto ninja who had been sidling up beside him. 

“They want the Uchiha boy,” Yashamaru says to Baki, who draws back his sword of wind and casually ducks the gore it spatters over the wall to the right. 

Looking down at the veritable wall of Sand that has surrounded the bewildered Uchiha scion Baki murmurs, "They'd best get used to disappointment." 

On the lower levels other ninja are fighting, veterans immune to the genjutsu. A green blur flashes across three aisles up and a moment later electricity crackles through the air. 

“The Uchiha,” Baki says which translates from Baki into 'our students are there and therefore we should be there, too'. 

Yashamaru agrees and down into the stadium they go. The proctor with the senbon- Genma?- has squared up against three Oto ninja. Behind them Sand is rasping. The arrival of Baki and Yashamaru is met with cheers from their students and a raised eyebrow from the proctor. 

“Didn’t expect Suna to be the calvary.” Genma says. 

“These are our students,” Yashamaru says, “and Leaf is our ally. Where our Kazekage fights, we fight.” 

His words are punctuated by a blast of Gold Dust on the roof high above. 

“Go to your leader,” Baki barks. “leave this to us.” 

Genma hesitates only a moment. Yashamaru smiles at him. “Trust us.” He says. 

Genma disappears. Bereft of their original opponent the Oto nin turn their attention to Baki and Yashamaru. 

Yashamaru breathes and sand breathes with him, rising from the stadium floor. The particles in Suna are finer, but Konoha is in danger; it will give all the Glass Hawk needs. 

A thin ribbon of invisible chakra, whitehot, and in the air above Yashamaru are a thousand shining bolts. 

He lets the incoming nin get close. A few on the outer edge fall to Baki’s wind slice but most are trying for the weak link, for the children. 

They might be surprised by what they find but Yashamaru isn't going to allow them the chance. He smiles gently. 

“I do believe it’s raining,” he says, and the shards of glass fall like meteors. 

The first three ninja are impaled before they can realize what’s happening. The next two hang back, looking for an opening. There isn’t one- between Yashamaru, Baki and the Sand Siblings, the growing contingent of young Leaf ninja (how did they all get down here at once?) there’s really no point. 

So they turn. 

They run. 

They get- at most- ten feet. 

Then the green blur appears and their heads are going one way while their bodies go another. 

It’s a war zone but Yashamaru admires the shine of the Leaf ninja’s hair, the way his legs are perfectly formed in that completely impractical jumpsuit. 

The man grins and the grin is megawatt with a thumbs up to match. “Truly, that was a most youthful performance!” He declares at the top of his very healthy lungs. “I had heard of the Glass Hawk of Suna! Magnificent!” 

“Gai,” Sharingan Kakashi arrives, “is this really-” 

“You weren’t much of a slouch yourself, Mr. Beautiful Blue Beast.” Yashamaru says with a winning smile. 

Another Oto ninja tries from the far wall. Baki blasts a hole through his sternum while staring at Yashamaru. 

“Are you FLIRTING?!” He demands as they make a protective ring around the other protective ring the children have already made, with the loud little blonde in the orange jumpsuit standing firm beside Gaara. 

“What business is it of yours?” Yashamaru asks. 

“Saaaa is now really the time?” Kakashi asks as he throws a kunai with a detonating tag at a dummy Oto nin, flushing the real one out for Gai’s furious fists. 

“Nonsense!” Gai cries. “It’s a fool who wastes his Springtime of Youth without taking encouragement from Glorious Desert Blossoms!” 

One of the attacking Oto ninja turns on his fellows, head twisting into a monsterous lion’s head. 

“DESERT BLOSSOMS?!” Cat’s yelp is outraged as he emerges from the Lion’s mouth, eyes wide. “Are you fucking serious?!” 

“Oh, the puppet-sensei.” Kakashi says. 

Yashamaru brings his heel down in a movement that shoots glass through the ground in a slender river, aiming for feet and legs. 

“Completely,” Yashamaru says, and though this is chaos and destruction and there are children at risk he finds that for the first time in a long time he feels electrifyingly alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did you just read Yashamaru/Gai? Yes. Yes you did.


	4. the Lowtown Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lead Cat not into temptation. He can find it on his own, and bring his students too.

It is an unfortunate truth that Lowtown exists and is full of all the worst kinds of things a ninvillage will produce. 

In Lowtown you can buy poisons that haven't been vetted by the Red Sands playhouse. You can bet on fights between desperate young genin and baby faceworms who spit acid that can eat flesh in seconds. Lowtown houses the brothels, the snakeoil salesmen, the men who think themselves masters of espionage but are at best information peddlers and at worst drunken louts. 

It also has the best damn fried lizard tails in the whole of the Land of Wind and Cat has a hankering. 

"If the Kazekage finds out we're here, we're dead," Temari whispers. She's practically glued to Cat's side. 

"Rule number one about your fearless leaders," Cat says to his student, "sometimes they don't need to know." 

"If Baki and Yashamaru find out we're here, we're dead," Kankuro says. He is walking a little ahead, trying his best to not be nervous, already developing the careless punk persona that will become his armor. 

"No," Cat corrects him, "you three are fine. I am dead." He grins, the paint around his lips making it grotesque. "If they can _catch_ me, that is." 

Gaara hangs on to the edge of Cat's long shirt and stares around wide eyed. Yashamaru has never let him near Lowtown, ostensibly to protect him from malignant forces who might try to kidnap him. More realistically it's so that Gaara doesn't wipe Lowtown off the face of Suna's map because every place of squalor has its advantages. 

"Are those eyeballs?" He asks his teacher. 

Cat examines the stringy orbs floating in a glass jar. "Too old to be useful," he says and no one dares ask him what they might be useful for. "Move along, we're almost there." 

Past the mats selling stolen and cheap jewelry, beyond the jars of questionable salves and oils, they finally reach the food stalls. 

"Oh happy day," Cat says and herds his little troupe down the middle of the narrow road. 

"Is that a crane scorpion?!" Temari asks, staring wide-eyed at a bottle full of red liquor with a curled up arachnid on the bottom. 

"So it is, young miss!" booms the proprietor of the stall, who seems to be made of half grease. 

Temari bristles. "That's illegal!" 

"Baki's through and through," Cat mutters and hurries her along. 

"They're endangered! The Damiyo has-" 

"HERE we are," Cat singsongs and shoves his students under the awning of a small sit-down stall. "Taki, talk to me." 

"Master Cat!" Taki's grin is missing a few teeth. "Here for the tail?" 

"No that comes later," Cat tells the man. "Here for tails, though. Four, if you could, and make it snappy I've got two jounin who are going to come looking any minute." 

"Right," Taki says and gets to work. Gaara, Temari and Kankuro watch in horrified fascination as he neatly slices four thick tails off of common rock lizard corpses kept in a salted barrel and stabs them with slender soapstone skewers before dumping them in a vat of something that might be oil and is burning hotter than any fire they've ever seen. 

When the skewers are handed over Cat grins and passes them off to his students. 

Temari eyes hers in trepidation. Kankuro is doing his best to control his face. 

Gaara immediately takes a bite.

Cat watches his eyes light up with deep satisfaction. 

"It's good," he promises his siblings. 

"Are you sure?" Kankuro asks. 

Gaara nods. Kankuro looks at the skewer and takes a deep breath. "Tell all my girlfriends I only talked of them at the end," he says to Temari. 

"You don't have a girlfriend," Temari says as Kankuro takes a bite. 

He chews thoughtfully and his eyes get wide. 

"Oh my god," he whispers with a mouth full of lizard. 

"Did you think I would lead you astray?" Their teacher asks, hand to his chest in shock. "How could you." 

All three focus on Temari, who glances between the vat of maybe-oil and the crispy tail on her skewer. She swallows hard and nips off a tiny piece. She inhales sharply, gnaws off another piece and then points accusingly at the oil. "What's IN that?!" she demands once she's chewed and swallowed. 

Taki clasps his hands together piously. "Old family secret. Passed down from-" 

A man entering the stall swings his arm out and his elbow is headed for the back of Kankuro's head. Kankuro doesn't pitch forward because he sensed the movement coming, but he's still too young to have been able to adjust entirely for the blow. It lands on his back. 

Gaara gestures, the sand he has packed on as armor beginning to dissolve down his arm as Temari drops her skewer for a kunai. Kankuro himself has whirled and has a hand full of needles. 

Cat moves between the children and the newcomer. 

"Tell me," he says, frosty and polite, "that you didn't just elbow an apprentice puppeteer in my presence?" 

The smell of cactus sake is thick on the man. He's wearing a chunin vest. "What if I did?" he asks. 

Cat neatly pulls the last of his lizard from his skewer, lays it on the countertop. Taki grabs it and backs away. He chews and considers the smirking idiot in front of him. 

"Kids," he says, "we are about to learn a very important lesson regarding drunks and battle tactics." 

 

\--

"You STARTED A BAR BRAWL!"

"I beg your pardon, Baki, I didn't start anything. And I never even went into the bar."

"You involved the children!" 

"They involved themselves and they did a spectacular job. I think Gaara's sand fist technique has improved by leaps and bounds, you should work with that, Yashamaru." 

"The Peaceful Cactus _burned to the ground,_ Cat." 

"That place served shit anyway and you know it." 

"The Kazekage is demanding answers!" 

"About what? A drunken brawl in Lowtown? Why would we know anything about that?"

"CAT!" 

Outside the room Kankuro, Temari and Gaara sit. Temari is still nursing a black eye. Kankuro has a split lip. Gaara is, of course, pristine. 

"Hey," Temari whispers, "do you remember how to get to Taki's?" 

Kankuro nods. 

"We have next friday off," Gaara says. "We get our stipends thursday." 

They smile at one another. 

"AND ONE MORE THING-" 

Kankuro snorts. "Sis, you're definitely Baki's." 

Temari puts her nose in the air. "So what?" 

"Just saying." 

She punches his shoulder.


	5. Correspondence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long-distance relationship can't be helped.

‘I miss you.’ 

It is such an earnest statement. It seems a bit out of character for the letter writer but Yashamaru knows better now. There are a lot of things about his lover that are big and loud and flamboyant but when push comes to shove Maito Gai can be quiet as a whisper. No flowery praise, no two-line nicknames, just the truth stated in black and white. 

I miss you. 

Nothing in the words false for they come from the most honest man Yashamaru has ever known, and he knows Baki The Rule Reciter. 

It isn’t the fault of either Yashamaru or Gai that they keep missing opportunities. One is recovering from a near-fatal battle, the other easing a boy who might as well be his son into a position he isn’t quite ready for. There are funerals and ceremonies and three days’ worth of journey between them. 

Still here it is on creamy paper he probably stole from the Hokage. 

‘I miss you.’

Yashamaru strokes the ink, imagines Gai writing it. Did Lee help? He might have; Gai is working his way back to strength but it will be a long road. 

Gaara asked if Yashamaru wished to stay in Konoha but he had refused, would refuse again if asked. The war is over and Gai is strong. There will be time. 

Yashamaru allows himself the luxury of a memory, of Gai’s hands warm on his waist and his head on the other man’s shoulder. His minds dips ever so briefly into the look on Cat’s face as he says “You have the weirdest goddamn taste in men, Yashamaru,” before he shuts the door. Cat's empty grave is still too new, the wound too raw. 

The regular courier will be leaving in the morning. 

Yashamaru gathers sand from one of his many bottles, mixes it professionally with ash and lime. This is not his battle-glass, brittle and destructive. He wants this to last. 

He blows fire into his hands and molds quickly. When he is done he is satisfied. It will have time to harden before he needs to pack it. 

Yashamaru sets the glass bird inside his smallest kiln. 

He writes a letter to go with it, a few quick strokes. 

'I miss you too.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> glassmaking is a lot more involved than I've made it sound here, and no doubt it would take Gai's present longer to be finished in reality. Glassmaking is cool.


	6. Banners of Kiyoshi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maki needs a little help with her face paint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A user on tumblr wanted to know about the fate of Pakura and her student Maki in the Rasa and the Cat 'verse. Unfortunately, due to timing Pakura's fate remains the same- but that doesn't mean Maki doesn't have brushes with our favorite erstwhile timetraveller.

The mission was hell but in the end she was successful and Maki been medically cleared. 

Of course realistically she shouldn’t be out of the hospital at all, but she can still walk. Others need the beds more. So she’s stiff and aching and still has a broken arm she’ll manage. 

There's one more thing left to do before she starts her trek home, however. 

Maki's not showing her face to her mother without her paint on right. 

The fountain in the hospital's innermost covered courtyard isn’t an ideal mirror, but at least the water in it is calm so long as no one is filling a canteen. She’s got her oil stick. It shouldn’t be hard.

Shouldn’t, yet is. Without the control of Maki's dominant arm her two simple purple marks keep coming out slurred and skewed, tired. The right finally sticks but the left is an absolute mess. 

She’s redone her left cheek three times when someone clears their throat behind her. 

Maki silently curses her lapse in perception and looks over her shoulder. There's a puppeteer- a Master, by the folded over hood- standing in the arching entryway. He lifts one scarlet eyebrow. 

“Need help?” he asks. 

She bites her lip. He sits on the fountain’s edge, delicate as a beetle across shifting dunes. 

“May I?” He asks. 

She hasn’t let anyone else do her makeup since her father died. Not even Pakura-sensei had ever…

“The Banners of Kiyoshi,” he says, sensing her hesitation. “an unusual choice for someone not in the troupe.” 

Maki does not know this puppeteer and silence is the better part of valor but her traitorous mouth says, “It was my father’s favorite.” 

There’s a flash of sorrow on the puppeteer’s face. “Skink had unusual taste.” 

Maki sniffs but doesn’t cry. Of course he knows her father. The puppeteers remember every member of their troupe, all the way back to the beginning. She was never allowed to see the scrolls that her father said hung in the Playhouse’s heart, but she’s certain they’re there. 

Is certain her father’s name is stitched in golden thread, the color still vibrant in the cool dark of the Red Sands stucco halls. 

“This one calls himself Cat.” The puppeteer says. 

Maki smiles, blinks away old tears that would just waste water. “I’m Maki.” 

She holds out the oil stick. “My mother expects me home soon.” 

“And we mustn’t interfere with the expectations of mothers,” Cat says wisely. He takes the oil stick and gestures for Maki to turn her head. 

It takes him moments to add the second banner. Maki eyes his handiwork in the fountain’s wobbling surface. 

“Thank you,” she says. 

He inclines his head and stands. “The Banners of Kiyoshi isn’t a happy story,” he comments. “I’ve always wanted to change the ending.” 

“Sometimes you can’t change the ending,” Maki says. 

“Why not?” Cat asks reasonably. 

Before Maki can reply, he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maki shows up in the anime as a member of Suna's sealing squad. I don't know if she ever showed up in the manga. 
> 
> The 'Masks' or 'Faces' of puppeteers are not, I think, strictly allowed only to them. It nicely explains all the weird facemarkings that never get any explanation. The puppeteers just crank it to the max because Theatre Kids Are Dramatic Messes.


	7. Junk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baki is having trouble cleaning up.

Baki hasn’t been able to bring himself to clean out the junk drawers in the teacher’s lounge.

One could argue it’s not his mess to clean up. Baki never leaves things in the teacher’s lounge. His coffee cups are always washed and replaced, his weapons cleaning kit comes in when he’s working and leaves with him when he’s done. He doesn’t hang on to scraps of leather or buttons, old pieces of canvas from repurposed pouches or vials of powder to mix with water for explosive seal tag ink.

Baki doesn’t keep things.

Cat did.

Cat kept EVERYTHING. Pieces of slag glass from Yashamaru’s smaller works, kunai picked off of dead enemies, doll-sized kimono obis. Bags of metal rounds meant to test Gaara’s magnetic capabilities, half-rusted gears from the puppeteer practice grounds. Temari’s old hair ties, ink sticks, ink stones, ink pigments. Tiny notebooks half full of writing in obscure languages, the tips of faceworm tails, small porcelain masks.

All of this had wound up in the junk drawers. Sometimes the pieces were useful and Cat’s eyes would go wide. He would scramble up from his chair- “Wait, wait hang on-” and would come back a few minutes later holding exactly what the team needed.

Baki told him on numerous occasions it was just trash. 

Things to get rid of. Weighing them all down.

Cat had laughed every time Baki had confronted him about his magpie habits and teased, "Don't you have any junk at all, Baki?" 

"No," he would snap back, and Yashamaru would watch the two of them debate over the philosophical implications of keeping verses purging until Cat was grinning so wide his Prince Shigamura had turned into a Shuten-Doji and Baki was red in the face. Nothing in the teacher's lounge was ever arranged, organized, or neatened on Cat's watch. 

They’re still in the drawers, Cat’s bits and bobs. Baki knows he should clean them out. Get rid of the old and make way for the new. Like a sandstorm wiping away a sidewinder's prints, like a monsoon in the Land of Fire turning all to mud so that more green could flourish. It's been over two years now. Time and past. 

Baki opens one drawer with its perfectly oiled runners and looks down on a half-cracked garnet picked up in the Land of Rice resting on top of a pile of prayer slips.

“You never know, Baki,” he can hear Cat say. “Could come in handy.”

Baki takes the garnet and closes the drawer.

He leaves it, useless semiprecious stone, on a marker for an empty grave.

The junk drawers remain full of junk. 

Who knows. It could all come in handy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shuten Doji is the name of a demon/ogre in Japanese myth who drank a whole lot and ate pretty ladies.


End file.
